The narrative of creation is told in the Book of Genesis, which is the first book of the Hebrew Bible. Over the span of 6 days, God, a soul hovering over a blank, watery abyss, creates the world by talking into the abyss and bringing into being light, sky, land, plants, and living animals.
God reveals his purpose to make a person in his “own likeness” on the sixth day, and he produces humanity. God leaves Adam and Eve in the lush garden of Eden, urging them to breed and genuinely appreciate the development strategies but preventing them from eating from the tree of knowledge of good.
The Old Testament poses and seeks to address the dilemma of how God can be both benevolent and all yet allow evil to exist in the real world. Each biblical book maintains that beginning with Adam and Eve’s first rebellious deed in the garden, moral wrongness is the unavoidable outcome of human transgression, not God’s hostility or negligence. The early chapters of Genesis portray God as dissatisfied or pained by human depravity, implying that people, not God, are responsible for human wrongdoing.
God’s traditional response to human action is retaliatory retribution, which means that people get what they earn. God destroys the wicked and rewards the good. This norm of punishment is opposed by the concept of kindness and forgiveness that runs throughout the biblical story. In the Old Testament, atonement takes two kinds. Sometimes one individual apologizes to another by just remembering or disregarding the transgression committed by the other.
Faith in the Old Testament is defined as firm confidence in the one true God and unwavering adherence to his will. The examples of biblical confidence are not those who are backed by religious doctrine but those that choose to believe in God in even the most difficult of circumstances. True religion means the capability to trust in God even when he is not seen. When the Israelites grumble after God constantly presents himself and performs wonders during the flight from Egypt, they reveal their utter lack of trust.